Intuitive
by Project 0506
Summary: Sleep is just one of the luxuries you give up when you become Gaara's friend.  Gaara, Lee friendship fic.


I don't own Naruto. Or Gaara. Or Lee. Or even the desk upon which this computer sits. Please don't sue. You will only get 35 cents and a ball of lint. It's not worth it. Really.

"It's... a beautiful sunrise. Ne Gaara?"

_'When are we gonna stop? We've been walking half the night. I'm hungry. Where are we going? This is boring. Why aren't we there yet?'_ Gaara mentally translated.

"Ah," the sand-user eloquently replied, in a manner most people would interpret as 'Shut up'. Either Rock Lee was oblivious (which, knowing the Konoha nin for as long as he did, Gaara knew was highly unlikely) or he completely the ignored the less than subtle hints to be silent.

"We don't see sunrises like this back home. Too many trees. You don't get to see it actually come over the horizon unless you're really high up." Quite used to carrying both ends of conversations, Lee wasn't surprised when his friend didn't reply. Slowly gray sand caught the daylight and melted into shimmering white beneath his shoes.

Beautiful... Lee smiled ruefully. Too bad it was so damned _inconvenient_!

He hopped a few steps on one foot, trying to keep up with the red-haired shinobi and empty sand from under his leg-warmers... again. Hana yori dango (1), he supposed. But he was still reluctant to part with his manly gift from his sensei... regardless of how they trapped itchy sand, and made the barely tolerable Suna heat Hell on his feet, and trapped itchy sand, and made him sweat, and trapped extremely itchy sand...

Lee grinned. "Thanks!" he exclaimed brightly as sand trickled out of his leg warmers as if accommodating. Gaara huffed: the not-quite-impatient sound told Lee he did it more because the taijutsu nin's bouncing was annoying than because he wanted to help.

"Sooo..." Lee drawled. "Where are we going?"

Gaara knew he was spending too much time around the other boy. He was beginning to pick up little things like the slightly complaining note in Lee's otherwise simple question. "If you didn't want to come you could have just said so."

"I_ did_ say so." Lee glared only half-jokingly. "Several times. And went back to bed."

"You're here," Gaara pointed out.

"You_ kidnapped me!_"

The Kazekage shrugged as if using sand to haul someone up by the ankles and drag them out into the desert at two in the morning was completely natural. It was actually kind of amusing. Lee was the only person alive who would keep right on arguing even while dangling upside down from something that nearly killed him twice. Gaara squelched a smirk. All he needed right now was Lee's dogged badgering to be let in on the joke.

Slowly his steps came to a halt. He took quick inventory of his mental state, easily slipping into a meditative near-trance. Amusement, mild irritation and a sort of morbid curiosity: all directed towards his travel companion. He nodded to himself, finding none of the previous week's tension or anger that had threatened his control more than once. Gaara's eyes opened to worried black eyes barely an inch from his face.

"You okay?"

"Move," the sand user dead-panned.

Lee grinned in relief. Monosyllables: he was fine. "We're there?" Gaara nodded imperceptibly. The taijutsu master eyed their surroundings critically. Stretching out in every direction was nothing but sand. "I don't get it. What's here?"

The red-head leveled a gaze at his friend that spoke of exactly what the Kazekage thought of his intelligence. "Nothing," he intoned, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world.

"_What?_" Lee glanced around furiously, as if expecting someone to jump out and yell 'Got ya!' "Whaddya mean nothi... Gaara!" Gaara had already begun walking back towards the distant village.

"We can get back before the day is hottest. You're not used to mid-day heat yet."

"Wait!" Lee fell into step with his friend. "You're joking, right?"

Gaara gave yet another 'you're an idiot' glance.

"You can't be serious! We walked four hours out into the desert to look at _nothing_!?"

"Yes."

"Wait. Hang on." The taijutsu nin shook his head violently. "_Why_ did we walk four hours out into the desert to look at nothing?"

"I wanted to take a walk."

Lee froze, jaw working comically with no words coming out. Regaining speech was a gradual process that began with sputtering and much flailing of lean, strong arms. "_You dragged me out of bed because you wanted_...GAARA!" Once again the sand nin had kept walking, all but ignoring Lee's indignant and righteous protests. A blur of green raced to catch up with a black and brown silhouette.

"Next time just _ask!_"

Gaara gave his 'whatever you say' hn. Both knew that it was an empty promise.

The next time the Kazekage was tormented by days of diplomatic negotiations and wanted to take a break, he would show up in Lee's room in the middle of the night, shake him out of bed and command 'Come'. And Lee would go, either willingly or hanging upside down from a cloud of sand.

After all, Gaara knew there was nothing like an idiotic friend to make the world seem like a good place, even if it was just for a single sunrise.

Author's notes:

(1) Hana yori dango: literally 'dumplings over flowers'. Means 'to prefer functionality instead of appearance'.


End file.
